When entrepreneurship students focus on creating value rather than just starting ventures, they develop skills that benefit them throughout their careers. Students with a growth mindset toward entrepreneurship believe they can continuously improve their entrepreneurial abilities and make a positive impact on society.

Few students have the means to start their own companies, so schools should not measure the success of entrepreneurial programs solely by the number of businesses students launch. Instead, schools should help students identify opportunities for creating value and articulate the purpose behind their entrepreneurial activities.

Achieving the goal of fostering entrepreneurial thinking and societal value creation in students is crucial for business schools. One effective approach is to help students develop growth mindsets toward entrepreneurship. Such mindsets encourage them to believe that with effort and the right strategies, they can enhance their entrepreneurial skills and create a positive impact over their lifetimes.

To understand the importance of this belief, it’s essential to grasp how mindsets function. Psychologist Carol Dweck explains that people form opinions about whether human abilities can change. For example, someone might believe intelligence is fixed and cannot be improved, which is a fixed mindset. Conversely, believing intelligence can be developed indicates a growth mindset.

Individuals can have different mindsets in various areas. One might have a growth mindset about athletic ability but a fixed mindset about artistic talent. Another might believe computer science ability is unchangeable while seeing creativity as improvable.

Fortunately, mindsets can change through short online experiments, practical exercises, and strategies that help improve entrepreneurial abilities. Teachers can foster mindset cultures in their classrooms using scalable and cost-effective tools.

Focusing on how business schools can encourage students to adopt growth mindsets toward entrepreneurship is essential. Research suggests that developing such mindsets can initiate a cognitive chain reaction, boosting students’ confidence in their entrepreneurial efforts and sparking lifelong interest in entrepreneurial pursuits.

New Metrics for Success

Business schools often judge the success of their entrepreneurship programs by counting student pitches, participation in competitions, or the launch of new ventures. However, few of these activities result in viable startups.

The disconnect with the launch metric is evident. While some student startups succeed, most students do not launch businesses while in school or immediately after graduation. Even among those that do, only a small number continue to grow after students leave campus.

Many students interested in entrepreneurship are not yet ready to start businesses. The average startup founder is between 30 and 40 years old, while most students are much younger. Additionally, students lack resources and experience with industries, markets, and customers, making them ill-prepared to launch firms.

Some schools also measure success by whether students create businesses with societal impact. However, achieving significant impact often requires large-scale efforts that are not feasible within a single semester.

Given these challenges, it is clear why business schools struggle to teach entrepreneurial thinking, make a societal impact, and meet program goals.

Emphasizing Growth

Schools will be more successful if they adopt a different approach. Instead of focusing on short-lived startups, they should encourage a growth mindset toward entrepreneurship. They should teach students to see entrepreneurial action as an improvable skill that can be applied in various contexts throughout their careers. Here are three suggestions for academic leaders:

1. Broaden Perspectives: Ensure students and administrators understand that entrepreneurship is not just about starting businesses. Stop relying on metrics tied to student-launched businesses and instead encourage students to articulate the purpose behind their efforts. Use resources like videos from authors such as Simon Sinek and Guy Kawasaki, who emphasize creating businesses with societal value.

2. Delve Deeper: Encourage students to spend more time identifying opportunities related to societal impact and sustainability. Show them that value creation can extend beyond starting ventures. When brainstorming, students should generate ideas addressing marketplace gaps, personal problems, and needed innovations, potentially linked to jobs they have or aspire to.

   Schools should also organize pitch competitions focused on value creation. For instance, they could require ideas to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many students are already interested in addressing issues like poverty and climate change. By identifying opportunities to tackle these problems, students can develop ideas and conduct research to bring them to life.

3. Look Beyond Careers: Encourage students to think about their lives beyond work. Career centers typically help students find jobs, but graduates will also engage in volunteer work, service trips, and charitable activities. Through these, students can significantly contribute to their communities and society.

Educational Shifts

Promoting a growth-mindset mentality involves assessing students’ attitudes at the start of entrepreneurial programs. After engaging with customers and exploring new market ideas, students can reflect on their learning experiences. Often, they will recognize how these activities have enhanced their entrepreneurial skills.

Over time, students with growth mindsets will apply entrepreneurship principles beyond what they learned in school, using them in businesses, corporations, and community volunteering. Focusing on value creation in entrepreneurship programs fosters a growth mindset that students can use throughout their careers, leading to positive societal impact.

For schools to focus on value creation, they need to shift their teaching methods. They must view students as value creators rather than products, adopting a holistic approach to societal impact through entrepreneurial action.

When schools embrace this perspective on value creation, they can develop achievable and relevant metrics. By orienting their mindsets and those of their students toward growth, schools can more effectively teach entrepreneurial thinking and contribute to societal well-being.